AGRONOMIJAS VĒSTIS - Latvijas Lauksaimniecības universitāte

AGRONOMIJAS VĒSTIS (Latvian Journal of Agronomy), No.10, LLU, 2008the inoculated silage had a temperature rise of more than 2 0 C in more than 2 days. Other authorsfound that some inoculants can improve the aerobic stability in silages by inhibiting the growth ofboth yeast and molds in silages (Driehuis et al., 2001). Whereas, the temperature increase due toyeast and mould activity after the opening of the silages can be attributed to the addition of theinoculant the improved the hygienic quality of the silages by inhibiting the growth of both yeastand molds in the silages.23Temperature, oC222120191817**Ambient temperatureLC1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Exposure time, daysFigure 1. Changes of temperature in silages ,* denotes significant at level 0.05As shown in Table 2 inoculation gave the higher (by 2.37% cow -1 day -1 ) dry matter intakethan the untreated silage. Martinsson (1992) reported, that the inoculant-treated silage increasedsilage DM intake by 7% during weeks 4-12 of lactation. This large effect can be accounted for fullyby the higher digestibility of the inoculant-treated silage. Castle and Watson (1973) concluded thatan increase of one percentage unit in digestible organic matter in the DM would result in anincrease in silage DM intake of 0.25 kg d -1 . Higher silage dry matter intake and the betterperformance of the animals were found by Gordon (1989). Milk yield was affected due to thehigher intake and the higher nutritive value of the inoculated silage. The average milk yield washigher by 6.47% for the inoculated silage diet compared with the untreated silage.Table 2 Intakes, yields and composition of milk of dairy cows fed inoculated and untreated silagesTreatmentSilagesC LLSD 0.05 LSD 0.01 S x_Silage intake, kg DM cow -1 day -1 11.80 12.08 2.29 3.798 4.75Total DMI, kg cow -1 day -1 16.38 16.96 3.125 5.183 4.77Total ME intake, MJ 171.5 185.75 33.692 55.87 4.79Daily milk productionMilk, kg cow -1 day -1 18.38 19.67 3.557 5.898 4.76ECM, kg cow -1 day -1 17.93 19.09 3.631 6.021 5.00Milk compositionFat, g kg -1 38.3 38.0 0.87 1.45 0.58Protein, g kg -1 34.1 34.0 1.20 2.00 0.9Milk constituent outputFat, g day -1 706 747 146 243 5.13Protein, g day -1 627 668 146 243 5.76The results showed that milk fat and milk protein did not differ markedly between thetreatments. Due to higher milk yield the output of milk fat and milk protein were higherrespectively by 41 g day -1 cow -1 and by 41 g day -1 cow -1 for cows fed the inoculated silage comparedwith the untreated silage.ConclusionsThe present data have shown that the addition of an inoculant to grass-legume swardsimproved their fermentation and hygienic quality, decreased DM losses and increased the nutritive257